Novo Nordisk A/S is to collaborate with the Canadian biotech company Aspect Biosystems Ltd to use bioprinting technology to advance its work in cell therapies for diabetes and obesity. Novo is a leading producer of insulins and more recently glucagon-like peptide 1 medicines for the treatment of diabetes. It has also been building a presence in regenerative medicine.
Bicycle Therapeutics Plc has entered a strategic collaboration with Novartis to pair its peptide technology with Novartis’ experience in radiopharmaceutical development to design new therapies for cancer. The agreement was announced on 28 March and will include a $50 million upfront payment to Bicycle and milestone commitments of up to $1.7 billion. Bicycle’s molecules are synthetic peptides held in place with small molecule scaffolds to form two loops that stabilise the structure. This creates a small binding site for its therapies which are said to achieve very specific targeting.
The Austrian biotech company Proxygen GmbH has executed a new collaboration with a large pharma company to identify and develop compounds that can promote the degradation of disease-causing proteins. Known as molecular glue degrader therapies, these small molecule drugs accomplish their task by stabilising protein to protein interactions in the cell, enabling ubiquitin ligases to mark faulty or misfolded proteins for degradation.
Germany-based mbiomics GmbH has raised €13 million in a Series A financing round to accelerate development of microbiome-based medicines. These are live bacterial therapeutics derived from the gut that can potentially be directed against multiple diseases.
Cancer Research UK has entered into a clinical development collaboration with UCB SA of Belgium to advance two candidate antibody therapeutics for cancer into the clinic. Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed.
The deal is one of several involving the UK charity and its division Cancer Research Horizons with institutions and companies across Europe. In November 2022, Cancer Research UK reached an agreement with the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden to validate novel drug targets in cancer.
Bank regulators in the US and UK took further steps on 12 March to protect depositors at Silicon Valley Bank in California and its UK subsidiary following the collapse of the parent company the previous Friday. The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) acted first on 10 March by closing the parent bank after a run on deposits. Concurrently, it created a new banking entity to protect insured depositors. This move protected customers with accounts of up to $250,000 – the US federally insured level – but it did not stop the contagion.
Sanofi SA is to acquire Provention Bio Inc of the US giving it a marketed product, Tzield (teplizumab), that has been shown to delay the onset of type 1 diabetes, as well as a pipeline of prospective therapies for other auto-immune diseases. The France-based multinational will pay $25 per share in cash for the Nasdaq-listed company, representing an equity value of about $2.9 billion. A traditional supplier of insulin, Sanofi stepped back from investment in diabetes products in 2019 after seeing an erosion of its market share in the US.
Pfizer Inc has concluded its widely reported merger talks with Seagen Inc with a cash offer to acquire the company for $229 per share representing an enterprise value of about $43 billion. Located in Bothell, Washington, US, Seagen (formerly Seattle Genetics), is one of the first developers of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) which are monoclonal antibodies chemically linked to a drug and directed against cancer. The antibody binds to specific proteins on cancer cells and the linker enables the toxic drug payload to enter the cells and kill them.
A 2020 spin-out company from Aarhus University in Denmark has raised €28 million in Series A financing from a syndicate of venture capitalists. Teitur Trophics ApS is building a pipeline of drugs directed against neurodegenerative diseases. Its first product, TT-P34, has reportedly shown brain-specific effects in animal models for Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and frontotemporal dementia.
US-based Silicon Valley Bank, which supplied capital to some of the county’s most ambitious entrepreneurs, collapsed on 10 March after a run on deposits triggered intervention by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC is an independent agency created by the US Congress to insure bank deposits and maintain public confidence in the nation’s financial institutions. To protect insured depositors, the FDIC closed the bank and created a new entity that will continue to service these customers.